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The Toronto Raptors announced Friday they have named Mike Evans, Jim Todd and Jay Triano to their basketball staff for the 2004-05 season, and have made director of player development Alex English an assistant coach. Todd and Triano will join English as assistants to head coach Sam Mitchell, while Evans will serve as a scout. Mitchell was named head coach June 29.

English and Todd will join Mitchell in Minneapolis from July 6-10 to assist with the Raptors’ entry in the Minnesota Summer League, while Triano will travel to China next week to tend to his duties as head coach of the Canadian National Team.

“I am very happy with this coaching staff and know they embody the basketball philosophy that Rob Babcock (Raptors general manager) and I want to bring to this organization,” said Mitchell. “These gentlemen have a vast amount of basketball experience on a myriad of levels. They will help us to prepare a team that works hard and is ready to compete each and every game.”

English will continue his duties as director of player development with the Raptors. He was named to that post June 7. This will be his third stint on an NBA bench after serving as an assistant coach with the Philadelphia 76ers last season and with the Atlanta Hawks during the 2002-03 campaign. He began his professional basketball coaching career in 2001-02 as the head coach of the National Basketball Development League’s North Charleston (S.C.) Lowgaters. In his lone season at the helm, English guided his team to a 36-20 record and a berth in the finals of the first NBDL Championship.

English was elected to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility in 1997 and is the NBA’s 11th all-time leading scorer with 25,613 points. He averaged 21.5 points, 5.5 points and 3.6 assists in 1,193 regular season games with Milwaukee, Indiana, Denver and Dallas.

Todd rejoins Mitchell as both worked in a coaching capacity for the Milwaukee Bucks the past two seasons. Todd served as assistant coach/player development for the Bucks last season after working as a coaching consultant in 2002-03.

Todd has been involved in coaching basketball at the high school, college or professional level since 1976. He began his NBA career in Milwaukee in 1996 as an assistant coach under Chris Ford. He followed Ford to the Los Angeles Clippers in 1998, and was named interim head coach of the Clippers on February 3, 2000.

After graduating from Fitchburg State in 1976, Todd led Notre Dame High School in Fitchburg, Massachusetts to the state championship. From 1977-86, he worked as a head coach at Fitchburg State, an assistant at Columbia University (NY) and Marist College, and as associate head coach at Manhattan College.

From 1987-96, Todd served as head coach at Salem State University and finished his tenure with an overall record of 192-57 (.771), including a mark of 110-10 (.917) in Massachusetts State College Athletic Conference play. He led the school to eight playoff appearances. In 1990 was named NCAA New England Coach of the Year.

Triano returns for his third season as a member of the Raptors’ coaching staff. He became the first Canadian born and Canadian trained coach in the NBA when he joined the Raptors in 2001.

A native of Niagara Falls, Triano has been the head coach of the Canadian men’s national team for the past six years posting a 49-39 (.557) record. He led Canada to a semifinal berth in the 2003 FIBA Americas Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Puerto Rico and to a 5-2 record, second best to the United States, in the 2000 Olympics.

Triano began his coaching career in 1985 as an assistant at his alma mater Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia. He took over the school’s head coaching duties in 1988 and served in that capacity until 1995. In 1992-93, he also worked as an assistant coach on the Canadian men’s national team and in 1993-94 he was the head coach of the Canadian men’s junior national team.

Evans has served as a player, scout, assistant coach, director of player personnel and head coach in his 20-plus years in the NBA. A first-round draft pick by Denver in 1978, he played nine seasons in the NBA averaging 7.7 points and 2.6 assists.

Evans spent six playing seasons with the Nuggets before joining their coaching staff in 1990. He was an assistant coach for the 1993-94 team that defeated No. 1 seed Seattle in the first round of the playoffs. He took over the head coaching duties of the Nuggets for the final 56 games of the 2001-02 season.